WCU sex assault case convictions reinstated

The state Supreme Court has reversed a decision that threw out convictions for three men accused of sexually assaulting a West Chester University freshman in her dorm room.

In a decision filed earlier this month, Justice Debra Todd, writing for the court, said the state Superior Court in 2011 had “erroneously substituted its own conclusions for those of the jury and the trial court” when in June 2011 it threw out the convictions for the trio, saying the verdict was “against the weight of the evidence.”

The Superior Court panel had concluded that the woman who had accused the three men of forcing her to have sex with each of them after she invited them to stay the night in her dorm room had not told the truth when she made her accusation. The three-judge panel said called it “manifestly unreasonable” to conclude that the woman did not consent to the sexual activity she and the men described at their trial.

But Todd, in her 13-page opinion, said the panel abused its legal discretion in throwing out the convictions after they had been upheld by President Judge James P. MacElree II, who oversaw the trial.

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“In essence, the Superior Court stepped into the shoes of the trial judge and revisited the underlying question of whether the verdict was against the weight of the evidence, an analysis that is not appropriate under the standard of review.”

The Chester County District Attorney’s Office had appealed the Superior Court’s decision in 2012. Chief Deputy District Attorney Nicholas Casenta, who heads the office’s appeals division, said that the case would now be returned to the Superior Court for review.

The high court’s decision, while a significant victory for the prosecution, will not have any immediate impact on the status of the three defendants – Jamel Clay, Jason Claybrook, and Rashid Lewis, all 23.

The men were released from state prison on bail after the Superior Court’s decision. They had been serving sentences of two to four years in prison handed down by MacElree in 2011; because they had been incarcerated for various periods since the time of the 2009 incident at West Chester, they were essentially nearing the end of their minimum terms and soon eligible for parole.

Defense attorney Mark Rassman of West Chester, who represented Clay at trial and sentencing, said there were various alternatives as to how the case against the men could now proceed.

The Superior Court panel that issued the initial ruling could revisit it as instructed by the Supreme Court and agree that it should have not thrown the case out, returning it to MacElree. That ruling would likely be appealed by the defendants.

The court, on the other hand, could review the case and again dismiss the convictions based on a new, more proper standard of review, Rassman speculated. That decision, he guessed, would be appealed by the prosecution.

Whatever the case, the prosecution of the three men will continue. “It is not close to being over, in my book,” Rassman said Friday, discussing the case.

The matter began on Feb. 7, 2009, when Clay and Claybrook, from Philadelphia, and Lewis, from Willow Grove, all visited friends they had in Sanderson Hall at West Chester University. As the night wore on, the three wondered whether they could stay in the dorm.

The 20-year-old woman at the center of the case, a freshman from Lancaster County, offered to let them stay in her room because her roommate was gone for the night.

At the trial in 2010, the woman testified that Lewis had gotten into bed with her, although she asked him not to.

Sometime during the night, Lewis began trying to kiss her. She testified that she tried to reject his advances but that he persisted, and eventually all three men had sex with the woman against her wishes.

The defendants argued that the encounter was consensual and that the woman had an opportunity to leave the room and report the assault but did not. Their attorneys pointed out that at one point, all three men left to room to smoke cigarettes, and came back, but that the woman never tried to get help. She was also able to go to the bathroom to brush her teeth during the night, but did not report any assault until the next day after the men had left.

At their sentencing in 2011, Rassman said that the jury had made a major blunder in finding the defendants guilty of sexual assault and indecent assault. They were acquitted of the more serious crime of rape.

Arguing for MacElree to enter a judgment of acquittal in opposition to the jury’s verdict, Rassman said the idea that the men had not forced themselves on the woman, as in a rape, but somehow had sex without her consent was a “fatal error.”

“The jury’s verdict was grossly inconsistent,” he told MacElree.

Arguing against Rassman’s motion to throw out the guilty verdict, then-Assistant District Attorney Ann Marie Wheatcraft, now a Common Pleas Court judge, said the verdict showed the jury had found some level of coercion on the defendants’ part — a “three-on-one” situation.

“We don’t really know what the jury thought and why they did what they did,” Wheatcraft told the judge. “What we are left with are convictions for serious crimes.”

First Assistant Public Defender Nathan Schenker, whose office represents Lewis, declined comment on the high court’s decision. It could not be determined who represents Claybrook at this time.